


Agape

by Veronae



Category: Openly Straight Series - Bill Konigsberg
Genre: Bear's Den, Ben's POV, Canon Compliant, Feels, Ficlet, Fluff, Friendship/Love, Love, M/M, Music, POV First Person, Teen Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-25 01:01:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22127434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Veronae/pseuds/Veronae
Summary: Ben hears The Song for the first time.
Relationships: Benjamin Carver/Seamus Rafael Goldberg
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	Agape

After the failed swimming lesson, there had been a scheduled meet up with Claire Olivia at the Laughing Goat. I was sort of embarrassed and sort of happy about how things had gone at the Athletic Club - after all, nearly drowning is pretty humiliating, I guess. But the epiphany had been nice.

Still, I was tired enough to want to go straight back to Rafe’s place. Since we’d promised to meet up I didn’t say anything, and it was kinda fun to hang out. Claire Olivia was nice and even though she occasionally gave me suspicious looks, she also seemed to have adopted me as a pseudo-best friend just because of Rafe.

It had been a week since we’d arrived in Boulder. As we sat at the Goat, sharing drinks and laughter, I wondered how the baseball guys were doing in Florida. It really sucked that I wasn’t there with them. And I also wondered how things were going at home. Luke at least had calmed down about my leaving, especially when I told him I’d be back at the beginning of term.

When we finally got back to Rafe’s I slipped away to the guest room, because I wanted the space to think. But sometimes I think maybe I just think too much. After an hour of getting tangled up in thoughts that didn’t go anywhere, I realised that I really didn’t want to be on my own at all. 

So I got up and slipped quietly across the hall to Rafe’s room, pushed the door open and eased inside.

He was sprawled across his bed and I can’t deny it - it did things to me, seeing him like that. I drew in a deep breath as he glanced up from his book and smiled. “Hey.”

“Hey,” I said, clicking the door shut and walking over to him. I settled on the edge of the mattress. “I just missed you,” I said after a long moment of silence.

He squinted at me like I’d said something weird, which I guess maybe I had. And then he grinned and reached out a hand, rested it on my knee. “You’re properly not mad at me anymore, huh?”

“That’s it,” I agreed, and sighed then smiled. “Yeah. I mean, it’s all still … big, you know? I’m not sure I’ve figured anything out yet. But I’m not irrationally sorta mad at you anymore.”

“Well, I’m glad,” Rafe said and closed his book. He set it aside on the bedside table and then sat up, reaching for me with both hands. I hugged him tight, squeezing him against me. It felt pretty great. His mouth moved against my shoulder. “You feel tense still. You wanna, like, talk about any of it?”

Did I? I wasn’t sure. There was certainly a lot of stuff on my mind, like the fact that the baseball team were all off bonding without me again. They might even be talking about me. I wasn’t sure if I’d still be team captain when I got back to school after my suspension or if they’d all have decided I was no longer welcome amongst them. It was so hard to know.

That was something Rafe would understand, though. He’d been through it with the soccer team, after all.

And there was also the fact that I’d be heading home in a week, and there was that whole thing to work out with my dad. Did I want to talk about that? Perchance.

Then there was the Pappas award. I knew that the meeting was supposed to have taken place by now, to find out whether or not I’d lost it - it was pretty much a given that, yes, I probably had according to absolutely everybody - but I still hadn’t heard either way. Perhaps they’d spoken to my parents about it instead. Perhaps not. The not-knowing was as bad as I suspected finally knowing was going to be.

Did I want to talk about all of that stuff? About any of that stuff?

Maybe. But maybe not just yet.

Letting go of Rafe, I pulled back until we were face to face and I smiled at him. “Nah. Not right now.”

He watched me. “Okay,” he said, not quite smiling. I could tell he was still kinda worried, so I kissed him. When I leaned back again I felt lighter, like the weight of thinking had eased, and I could see Rafe did too. He smiled. “You wanna just hang out then? Or something … else?”

I was pretty sure I knew what  _ else  _ was, and the gleam in Rafe’s eyes confirmed it for me. Before I could answer, though, a stream of music started up, bleeding through the open window. Rafe groaned and dropped his face into his palm for a moment.

I blinked. “What?” I asked as he jumped off the bed and slammed the window shut, pulling the blinds across. “You got something against John Lennon?” 

Rafe looked at me and rolled his eyes. “Just, trust me. You don’t wanna know.”

Well, obviously he couldn’t say something like that and expect me to actually not want to know, so I got to my feet. Rafe tried to block me, to stop me getting to the window, but I threatened to tackle him and he threw his hands up in an  _ I warned you _ way and let me push him out of the way.

Tweaking the curtain, I glanced outside and saw a flash of red hair and skin that could only have been Rafe’s mum’s butt. Shocked, I slapped both hands over my eyes and stumbled back. “Aaaahhh,” I mumbled, nowhere near the howl/scream my brain was making.

Rafe’s hand pressed against my belly, guiding me away from the window. I stumbled into his desk chair and carefully blinked my eyes towards him. He shrugged in a sort of hopeless way and I sighed.

Even with the window closed, the music crept through. “Okay,” I said, spinning towards the laptop on the desk. “I think we need to drown that out.”

“Sure,” Rafe agreed, but then a strange spasm flicked over his face when I pulled open his Spotify. He lurched forward as though to snatch the computer away from me, but he was too late - I’d seen it, the most recently played song sitting in the toolbar.

_ Agape _ .

Curious, I glanced over at him. Rafe looked sort of nervous, embarrassed even. It was kind of cute. I smiled, this strange feeling washing over me. I definitely needed to hear this song. Tapping the song back to the start, I pressed play.

I wasn’t sure what to think, at first. There was a banjo and I was going to make a joke about Boulder banjoing, but when I looked at Rafe I found I couldn’t say anything. And then the banjo trembled through a few notes and I smiled and realised I could probably get into this sort of music.

Then the guy began singing and all the air left my body.

I’d never heard anything like it. 

The pain … I could hear my own pain in it. And I could hear Rafe’s pain as well. It hit me stronger than I had ever let it and my heart twisted. It hurt. It ached. I stared blankly at the desk as words flowed into my ears and stabbed my brain.

I guess I’d never really thought that much about how what we’d been through had hurt Rafe, too. At the time, my anger was stronger than that, and then when we’d made up it sort of just never occurred to me. That Rafe was hurting too was more like … an abstract thought than a thing I needed to focus on. 

Now here it was, all laid out in notes and words. A lamentation for both of us. To both of us.

The guy crooned,  _ I’m so scared of losing you, and I don’t know what I can do about it _ . I gulped and looked over at Rafe. His eyes were averted, but I saw him. Through those words, I saw him. I saw his hurt. It felt like I suddenly understood something that I’d deliberately chosen to ignore until now.

And I hurt too. 

I sat there and I let the song hurt me. And it felt kinda good. Liberating. Like I could vent my pain through it, a bit. My heart twisted inside my chest and I just wanted to make everything good for Rafe again. For both of us.

When the song ended, I tapped the pause button and John Lennon’s voice crept back into the silence but I didn’t care now. I tried to speak but my voice wouldn’t work. It took a few moments before I finally croaked, “Jesus, Rafe.”

He still wouldn’t look at me. He shrugged a little. “I get a bit emo when you’re mad at me.”

“Yeah, but…” I got up and moved over to the bed and sat beside him. My body got hot and my mind buzzed being so close to him, so much emotion swimming between us. “Why would you do that to yourself?”

“It just says it all so well,” he whispered.

“It does that,” I agreed. And then I decided I couldn’t stand another second of avoidance so I reached out and put both my hands on his face, tipped his head up until our eyes met. I dived into his uncertain, hazel gaze. “I’m sorry,” I said.

Rafe blinked. “What for?”

“For not getting it. For not even trying to get it. At Thanksgiving. How much it meant to you.”

“It’s okay,” Rafe said, and I could see he meant it. And I guess it was because we’d already come so much further than that. We didn’t need to dredge it all up again. So I just answered by kissing him, soft and sweet even though there was a tide of heat in my blood that just wanted to shove him down on the mattress and do much more than kiss.

Rafe must have felt the same need because he shifted back across the bed and reclined, pulling me down with him. As his hands moved to my waistband, I pulled back to restart the music. Something more upbeat came on, but it didn’t matter to me what was playing as long as it drowned out Mrs Goldberg’s nude music. I didn’t need to have that in my mind when I was in bed with Rafe.

I reached out and touched him, knowing in that moment that I was not going to lose him again. After all, I already knew who I was without Rafe - and no way was I ever going back to that version of me.


End file.
